Poetry is what gets lost in translation-Robert Frost

January 31, 2018

The Dekalog

I have been a fan of the Polish director Krzysztof Kielowski since his Three Colors trilogy that was released when I was in college, and many reviews mentioned The Dekalog (1989), a 10 part 10 hour TV series that made for Polish TV, as his masterwork. Now after finally having seen it, I must agree. It is complex series of dramatic stories that not only capture people (Poles) in a certain place at a certain time 8inthe 80s), but delve in the complexities of the human condition as filtered through medications on the 10 commandments. It was written by Kielowski and his co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a former lawyer, and features nine different cinematographers. The fact that direction came from Kielowski and even though the different episodes may have looked different from each other-the thematic coherence remains due to recurring characters, visual themes of location (in particular the enclosed location of a housing estate), and the impressive musical compositions of Zbigniew Preisner. There is an impressive ensemble cast used throughout the series as well-some characters recur, but the leads in all 10 episodes revolve. All the episodes are well-constructed and written self-contained human dramas. The first is sets the tone in melancholy while the last episode is something of a comedy. Two episodes were released as full-length features-the fifth and episodes: A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love. The fifth episode about killing in particular has a memorable visual aesthetic to it as the creators wanted to make a comment on the filth and disorder of killing-it is yellow filters, muddy, and grey in comparison to the other filmed sequences and one of the more powerful. All in all, I am in agreement with the consensus-it is a masterpiece of modern cinema. The Criterion edition includes a wide array of extras such as: a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks, new high-definition digital restorations of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks, a selection of archival interviews with director Krzysztof Kielowski, culled from footage from the 1987 production of Dekalog: Two, excerpts from the 1995 documentary A Short Film About Dekalog, and a 1990 audio recording from the National Film Theatre in London, a new program on the visual rhyming of Dekalog by film studies professor Annette Insdorf, new and archival interviews with Dekalog cast and crew, including cowriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, thirteen actors, three cinematographers, editor Ewa Smal, and Kielowski's confidante Hanna Krall, trailers, and a booklet featuring an essay and film analyses by film scholar Paul Coates and excerpted reprints from Kielowski on Kielowski.